Join the Future of Food conference

Jan 24, 2025

Farm Credit Canada (FCC) alongside industry partners invite the media to attend the Future of Food conference – in person – being held on Canada’s Agriculture Day, in Ottawa, Ontario on Tuesday, February 11, 2025.

Connect, celebrate and learn about innovation as the Future of Food conference focuses on the opportunities that exist for Canada’s agriculture and food industry.

Pre-registration is required for this event. Contact mediarelations@fcc.ca for a media code to access free registration. Please note the conference will not be recorded.

The Future of Food conference connects innovative leaders in agriculture and food to learn about how the industry is driving change for a better future. The speaker line-up is filled with leaders, innovators and changemakers in the Canadian food system. Justine Henricks, FCC president and CEO will speak to opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and investment in Canada's agriculture and food sector to drive positive change and address global challenges.

The agenda is also filled with a series of panels and presentations on the most relevant opportunities facing the industry today.

Media representatives are welcome to attend all or parts of the program.

When: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. EST on Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Where: Rogers Centre, 55 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.